Summer in Maine is...

• Tank tops by day, hoodies by night 
• Air so rich with strawberry smells that you stop smack in the middle of the Monument Square farmers market and giggle; the "tomato bar" in late August elicits the same response
• Arms stained tie-dye red-purple-orange from the popcicles you slurp on the front porch; the house won't cool down until the sun sets 
• Slow weekend mornings -- cold brew coffee, a book, a blanket, a patch of grass overlooking the sailboat-dotted harbor
• Gigantic 10-story cruise ships, teeming streets, no parking spaces, buskers on every corner, impossibly long restaurant waits, a people-watching bonanza
• Seagulls brazenly eyeing your fries as you pick apart lobsters the rocks at Two Lights Lobster Shark, laughing as the butter and salt water ooze down our forearms
• Clouds that build and blow through a deep blue sky, mirrored in the lake we're floating on; reach your head back far enough, and it's easy to lose the distinction between water and sky.
• Acrid charcoal-roasting meaty smells from all directions while you roast marshmallows and swat bugs around the backyard fire pit (some skunky weed-smoking smells around, too)
• A house full of loved ones, visiting for long stretches of time...but never long enough
• Kayak afternoons on the Scarborough Marsh, sunburn and solitude, cormorants perched on the directional sign like paid employees of the Audubon Society
• Day drinking on the Maine Brew Bus, soaking in the local craft brew culture but quickly realizing that you haven't been so drunk at 2:30 in the afternoon in, oh, 20 years
• Humidity so thick and enduring the back towels never really dry out
• Hermit crabs skittering over your toes at Kettle Cove; try not to giggle when covered in tiny crab feet
• Seaside sunset picnic with colors so rich you can't even speak...a moon that rises in cartoon-huge proportion over the sea...then mosquitoes that swarm so fast you have to spring to the car
• White chocolate lavender ice cream at Bayley's, kids dancing on the patio, smiling sweetly thinking "we live in Vacationland!"

Every summer, around Memorial Day, we make a poster like this one to remind us of all the epic, action-packed, super-fun we plan to have in the few brief weeks between June and September. This summer was one for the books, for sure, in good and bad ways. I'm smiling now as I realize that we managed to do just about everything on this year's Summer Fun poster, as well as some stuff we hadn't really counted on. And now it's time to draft the Fall/Winter Fun poster...